Poetry by Scott Wiggerman

                        Adam B CC



Whoa!/X!##X!/Yikes!

White, old, male: I am, my husband is. Three strikes against us these days. Here’s the crux:
You cannot do much about the race you are born into, nor can you wish or waltz
away aging, though many do their damnedest. Sex, though changeable, has its own rub.
C’est la vie. While not exactly loud and proud of it, I can accept being male, old,
Euro-American (but at least gay). What I cannot accept are all the others who huff and chuff,
gird themselves in privilege, and go on about how America is a land of self-made wealth,
impartial opportunity, and infinite possibility—but not a place for people named Samaj,
Kareem, Xotchil. I hear these old white men speak and I’m ashamed at their gall,
men who do not embody my beliefs though their bodies look like mine. Do they listen
only through their ass? These are the men who promote prejudice, their views a deep
quagmire of inaccuracies and prevarications, grasping to the last gasp of prior
sins and trespasses. Husband, we know change is possible, but too many used to entitlement
unfortunately won’t transmute. I think our time is up. I think we should expect the shiv.

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Scott Wiggerman is the author of three books of poetry, Leaf and Beak: Sonnets, Presence, and Vegetables and Other Relationships; and the editor of several volumes, including Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry, Bearing the Mask, and 22 Poems and a Prayer for El Paso. Poems have appeared recently in Gyroscope Review, Impossible Archetype, Shot Glass Journal, Raven Review, and Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry column. His website is http://swig.tripod.com